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South Dakota State held Michigan’s star guard Trey Burke to a season-low six points, and Brayden Carlson scored 20 points to lead the Jackrabbits, but Burke’s Wolverine teammates picked up the slack in a 71-56 win over the Jackrabbits in the second round of the NCAA Tournament in Auburn Hills, Mich.
The loss ends the No. 13 seed Jackrabbits season with a 25-10 record, while the No. 4 seed and No. 6/8 ranked Wolverines advance to the round of 32 to face VCU on Saturday.
“We can’t shoot the ball like we shot it and beat Michigan, we have to shoot it a lot better than that,” head coach Scott Nagy said. “We needed finish with around 10 threes and not four, and we got good looks, we just didn’t shoot the ball well tonight. I look at every other stat; we tied in rebounding, we had 13 assists, 12 turnovers , and we would’ve had more assists if we could’ve made shots, but we just didn’t shoot the ball well.”
The Jackrabbits finished 23-of-52 from the floor, 44.2 percent, but went 4-19 from 3-point range, 21.1 percent. Michigan shot 50.9 percent from the floor, 28-of-55, and went 9-of-20 from beyond the 3-point arc, 45 percent.
SDSU fell into an early 7-2 hole, but came right back with an 11-0 run to take a 13-7 lead with 11 minutes and 35 seconds left in the first half.
The Wolverines responded with a 14-3 run of their own to regain a lead, and led by as many as eight points at 27-19 after a pair of Burke free throws with 2:48 left in the opening half, but the Jacks cut the lead to 30-26 at half after Carlson knocked down a jumper from the left baseline with under five seconds to play in the half.
Michigan pushed the lead to as many as 11 points early in the second half, only to see the Jacks fight back to get within six points at 49-43 with 10:35 left to play. The Wolverines fired back with a 10-2 run that put them up 59-45 left 7:24 left, and essentially sealed a win.
In addition to his team-high 20 points, Carlson tied a career-high with eight rebounds and added four assists. Tony Fiegen and Jordan Dykstra both finished with 12 points, with Dykstra tying for game-high honors with nine rebounds.
Nate Wolters finished with a season-low 10 points, but did dish out six assists and grab five rebounds, which puts him in elite company, as one of just three players in NCAA Division I history to record at least 2,000 career points, and at least 600 each in rebounds and assists.
In addition to joining the elite 2,000-600-600 club, Wolters finished the sason averaging 22.3 points, 5.6 rebounds and 5.8 assists per game, making him the first player since the NCAA began keeping assists as an official stat in 1983-84 to average at least 20 points, five rebounds and five assists per game in two separate seasons.
Michigan’s Glenn Robinson III and Tim Hardaway, Jr., tied for game-high honors with 21 points each. Mitch McGary added 13 points and tied with Dykstra with a game-high nine rebounds. Burke scored just six points, but did finish with a game-high seven assists. SDSU and Michigan played in front of 19,829 fans at the Palace of Auburn Hills on Thursday.
Courtesy: ryan Sweeter, SDSU
